Governor Chris Christie’s decision not
to reappoint New Jersey Supreme Court Justice John Wallace may
force the state’s highest court to assign a temporary judge to
fill a vacancy for the first time since the 1970s.

Democratic Senate President Stephen Sweeney said yesterday
he would block the nomination of Republican attorney Anne Murray Patterson to replace Wallace, the first sitting member of the
panel to be denied tenure. Neither Wallace nor Patterson can be
seated during any impasse, said Winnie Comfort, a spokeswoman
for the state judiciary.

“That becomes a vacancy by both the constitution and our
court rules,” Comfort said in an interview. “The chief justice
has the authority to make a temporary assignment to fill any
vacancy.”

Chief Justice Stuart Rabner may appoint a stand-in from the
ranks of retired Supreme Court justices or from the Appellate
Division of Superior Court, Comfort said. Rabner, who was
nominated to the panel in 2007 by former Democratic Governor Jon Corzine, said yesterday in a statement he was “disappointed”
by Christie’s announcement he would not reappoint Wallace.

Christie, 47, a Republican who took office Jan. 19, angered
Democratic lawmakers with the move to replace Wallace, a
Democrat whose initial seven-year term ends May 20. Under New
Jersey’s constitution, a justice who is reappointed after their
first term remains until the court’s mandatory retirement age of
70. Wallace, the panel’s only black member, is 68.

‘Legislating From the Bench’

Christie, the first Republican elected New Jersey governor
since 1997, said he believes the panel has a history of
“legislating from the bench,” without naming any of Wallace’s
decisions with which he disagreed. The governor said he made the
move to begin reshaping the seven-member court, which is
currently made up of four Democrats, two Republicans and an
Independent.

Patterson, 51, is a partner with the law firm Riker,
Danzig, Scherer, Hyland & Perretti LLP in Morristown, New
Jersey, specializing in state and federal product-liability and
commercial litigation. She is a registered Republican, Christie
told reporters.

Sweeney, 50, of West Deptford, said yesterday he wouldn’t
authorize confirmation hearings on the nomination of Patterson.
The senate president controls the chamber’s agenda, including
nomination hearings. Democrats control the Legislature.
“If I called a hearing, I’d be sending the wrong message to
all of the justices and judges on the bench right now that the
governor can remove you if you make the wrong decision,” Sweeney
told Bloomberg News yesterday in a telephone interview.

First Refusal

Christie won’t withdraw Patterson’s nomination because of
Sweeney’s “reflexive” threat, Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for
the governor, said yesterday.

Since the state’s current constitution was adopted in 1947,
no sitting Supreme Court judge has been denied reappointment.
Former Justice Peter Verniero, who was appointed to the bench in
1999, stepped down in August 2004 to return to private practice
prior to his term ending, Comfort said.

“This was not a decision I took lightly,’” Christie told
reporters yesterday in Trenton. “This is about a different
constitutional philosophy.”

Short Assignments

Dozens of temporary judges have been appointed to replace
jurists who recuse themselves from certain cases, or for
individual hearings when justices are sick or absent, Comfort
said. Long-term replacements are rare, she said.

Milton Conford, a judge in the Appellate Division of New
Jersey Superior Court from 1953 until 1979, twice filled
extended vacancies in the 1970s, Comfort said.

Conford, who died at 80 in 1989, was an acting justice from
July 1972 to March 1973 and March 1975 to March 1977. He was one
of two appellate judges brought up to fill two spots on the
bench, Comfort said. During that time, he participated in
rulings including the Mount Laurel zoning case, the opening of
Little League baseball to girls and the Karen Ann Quinlan right-
to-die case, according to his New York Times obituary.